Print is Dead

It’s a bit belated, but of course last Sunday marked the passing of Hunter S. Thompson. I don’t need to add another fawning retrospective about HST’s influence on my writing / politics / lifestyle, because the appeal of outlaw journalism is obvious to anyone who prefers the subversive to the established. What has moved me to write is an apparent misunderstanding, or perhaps a revisionist wave, that is gathering momentum following the author’s death.

Some reviewers seem unwilling or unable to disentangle Thompson’s work from his gonzo persona, dismissing the former due to the cartoonishly juvenile behavior of the latter. This is understandable, since the extremism of Thompson’s alter ego often overshadowed the subjects he was covering. Invariably, much of HST’s popularity came from fans drawn to his anarchic hedonism rather than his incisive commentary, and Thompson’s apparent infatuation with his own legend only contributed to diluting the credibility of his work. And admittedly, an over-reliance on this persona comes across as self-absorbed and shallow in his less compelling writing.

What cannot be overlooked, however, is that this same selfish immaturity also elevated Thompson’s writing beyond mundane observation into a personalized crusade. By becoming part of the story, HST inserted a catalyst of aggressive truth that would have otherwise been hidden; the very presence of Thompson’s persona unearthed reactions and situations that often cut closer to truth than anything exposed from an objective third-person perspective.

Unfortunately, Thompson’s death comes at a time when his acerbic involvement is most needed. The objective journalism that he shunned has become a joke where Fox News shrouds its political stripes in a contemptible sham of impartiality and every other outlet favors banality over investigation. This sad state of reporting is the logical regression of gonzo journalism to the mean. When you have an extreme personality pushing stories into improbable directions, gonzo journalism finds insight and entertainment at the fringe, hiding in a dusty corner no one has cleaned for a long time. But when average shmoes insert their opinion into a story, all we get is bland information with a bias towards the status quo, treading over the same territory we’ve already covered a thousand times before.

As much as we’d like to make a hero of this outlaw journalist, what truly matters is that HST found light at the murky border between fact and fiction, and shared it with us in violently exquisite prose that frightened some as much as it entertained others. The vessel he chose may have been an end (if not THE end) to Hunter, but for us it was simply a means to facilitate his mission. Hunter, you will be missed, even if you weren’t ever really here.